WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH OUR SUPERSTITIOUS FATHERS

Lucille Mona Ling


unlearned love crawls 

into their arms, children

Not us 

others, 

self-made or

left

in the cribs of water lilies

         eastern statues of stars

embedded in the octagonal petal dress

they wear bracelets around their wrists

Don’t let me continue

Don’t let me continue 

you’d rather I erase these

symbols of fractal misinterpretation 

the red crying 

the infinite yellow      wishes for better roofs

I have seen your hands dance 

To music 

Loud in the shell of the metallic 

car

care

taker 

Takeaway the t

and you leave the puppet 

Aching 

          achieving inanimate emotions

          known to AI

ai 

to love

aime

love me

there are so many languages ai

Can learn

  I

Can learn 

to aimlessly improvise healing 

The tea leaves that predicted

        green misfortunes have now rotten into

Auspiciousness, 

I remember how you listened 

To hypnotic 

To repetitive 

Music inaccessible 

to small ears 

Too hypnotic

Too repetitive 

too small 

too childish 

Listen to the outside,     beyond 

the rhythm lie 

goosebumps:

hills of transcen

dance 


Notes:

1. Stern means ‘star’ in German.

2. Ai means ‘love’ in Chinese.

3. J’aime means ‘I love’ in French

Lucille Mona Ling is a poet from Berlin, currently based in Glasgow. Her poetry has been published in The Dark Horse, Gutter, Horizon Magazine, and Middleground Magazine. She has been included in the Scottish Poetry Library Anthology of Best Scottish Poems of 2021. Since 2023 she is the founder and poetry editor at Contralytic an interdisciplinary philosophy journal.